I want to follow up on Matt’s previous post – I had fun playing his game last week.

Now, since taking a well deserved and longer than expected break from running (I still ‘organize’) D&D Encounters (“DNDENC”) at one of our local stores I have been going without playing any D&D for many months. [Side note: My main group bailed on me during the last half of the Neverwinter DNDENC season and I have no interest in the Feywild season that’s currently going on. Neither do any players as it turned out.]

So I really wanted to start playing again and as you could tell from Matt’s post (did you read it? I’ll give you a moment if you need some time) his regular game also petered out recently. So when he put the call out to try the Pathfinder starter set (which I’ll call dnd (lowercase letters)) I figured, “Hey, it’s based off of the D&D 3.5 ruleset- why the hell not?”

I grew up playing 1st edition and later 2nd edition. Many years later I returned to D&D for 3rd edition. I never played any 3.5 so while it’s basically the game I grew up playing I honestly can’t remember any details of a world before 4e. So, with that said, I still like 4e. I haven’t played near enough of 4e as Matt has to have experienced the problems at the higher levels. I understand there are issues with the Epic tier and even some in upper Paragon. I simply haven’t experienced this so I don’t know. What I do know is that the lower level stuff is still really fun for me and I have lots of material that I could use someday. Probably too much. So when Matt says that I’ll never be able to truly get my return on investment (ROI) I know he’s right. Back to the dnd game last week.

It was fun. Playing that Pathfinder game was both familiar and didn’t quite feel right. I played the rogue and while I didn’t have lots of cool powers to choose from (I was just poking things with my rapier) I did have a couple of moments where the other 4e vets (that term is a stretch but I’ll go with it) were kinda standing around looking for something to do which left me to actually act so we’d get thru this. I became the de facto leader of the game. “I’ll walk up and examine that statue.” “I’ll listen around the corner to hear what’s in the next room.” “I’ll check the door.” I eventually got to the point where I just decided “We need to pick this up a bit – I’m just opening the door.” On the whole, everything I expected to happen did and nothing really struck me as being vastly different or better or worse that what I’d been playing for the past couple of years.

I had fun but I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. It was fun gaming with the guys and if I have a chance to do it again I will. But I’d rather try and get some ROI out of my recent 4e purchases. I still have the DM Kit, the Threats of the Nentir Vale, the Madness at Gardmore Abbey, the Gloomwrought, the … oh boy, I’m never getting my ROI…